Hoang Yan Lin

Polarization-independent broad-band nearly perfect absorbers in the visible regime.

Polarization-independent broad-band absorbers in the visible regime are theoretically investigated. The absorbers are three-layered structures consisting of a lossy dielectric grating on top of a low-loss dielectric layer and a substrate of the same lossy dielectric placed at the bottom. Enhanced absorption in the underlying structure is attained over a broad range of frequency for both TE and TM polarizations. In particular, a nearly perfect absorbance (over 99.6%) is achieved at λ ≈ 600 nm, around which the absorption spectra show a substantial overlap between two polarizations. The enhanced absorption is attributed to cavity resonance and its hybridization with a weakly bound surface wave. This feature is illustrated with the electric field patterns and time-averaged power loss density associated with the resonances.

Patterned microlens array for efficiency improvement of small-pixelated organic light-emitting devices

In this paper, we experimentally and theoretically investigated the optical characteristics of organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs), having different pixel sizes and attached with patterned microlens array films. For a regular microlens array, though it can extract the waveguiding light and increase luminous current efficiency for a large-pixelated OLED, we observed that it decreases the luminance to an even lower level than that of the planar OLED as its pixel size is close to the microlens dimension. Although a microlens can effectively outcouple the light rays originally at incident angles larger than the critical angle, it also can impede the outcoupling for the light rays originally at incident angles smaller than the critical angle. Enhancement or reduction of the light extraction depends on the relative positions of the light emitting point and the microlens. Therefore, we proposed a center-hollowed microlens array, of which the microlenses directly upon the pixel are removed, and proved that it can increase the luminous current efficiency and luminous power efficiency of a small-pixelated OLED. By attaching this patterned microlens array, 87% of luminance enhancement in the normal direction was observed for a 0.1x0.1 mm2 OLED pixel. On the other hand, a regular microlens array resulted in 4% decrease under the same condition.

High ambient-contrast-ratio display using tandem reflective liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting device.

A high ambient-contrast-ratio (A-CR) and large aperture-ratio display is conceptually demonstrated and experimentally validated by stacking a normally black reflective liquid crystal display (NB-RLCD) and an organic light-emitting device (OLED). Such a tandem device can be switched between the NB-RLCD mode and the OLED mode under bright and dark ambient light, respectively. The normally black characteristic of the RLCD also helps to boost the A-CR under OLED-mode operation. To obtain a better image quality in the RLCD mode, a bumpy and transmissive structure is used to eliminate the specular reflection and to increase the viewing angle performance that results in CR>2:1 over 55 degrees viewing cone. Besides, such a structure can also increase the external quantum efficiency of the OLED by 49.4%. In our experiments, regardless of the ambient intensity the A-CR is kept higher than 100:1.

Emission characteristics of organic light-emitting diodes and organic thin-films with planar and corrugated structures.

In this paper, we review the emission characteristics from organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic molecular thin films with planar and corrugated structures. In a planar thin film structure, light emission from OLEDs was strongly influenced by the interference effect. With suitable design of microcavity structure and layer thicknesses adjustment, optical characteristics can be engineered to achieve high optical intensity, suitable emission wavelength, and broad viewing angles. To increase the extraction efficiency from OLEDs and organic thin-films, corrugated structure with micro- and nano-scale were applied. Microstructures can effectively redirects the waveguiding light in the substrate outside the device. For nanostructures, it is also possible to couple out the organic and plasmonic modes, not only the substrate mode.

Efficiency improvement and spectral shift of an organic light-emitting device by attaching a hexagon-based microlens array

In this paper, we present and analyze the influences of the fill factor and the sag of hexagon-based microlenses on the optical characteristics of an organic light-emitting device (OLED), such as spectral shift, CIE (abbreviation of the French ‘Commission internationale de l’´ eclairage’) coordinates, viewing angle dependence, luminous current efficiency and luminous power efficiency. Both the luminous current efficiency and luminous power efficiency of the OLED were found to increase linearly on increasing the fill factor of the microlenses. It is also found that the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the OLED spectra and CIE coordinates decreased linearly on increasing the fill factor of the microlenses. Besides, the efficiency improvement of the OLED increased with the height ratio of attached microlenses. Compared to the OLED, the luminous current efficiency and luminous power efficiency of the device can be enhanced by 35% and 40%, respectively, by attaching a microlens array having a fill factor of 0.90 and a height ratio of 0.56. We also observed blue shifts at different viewing angles when microlens arrays were attached to the OLED, which is evidence that the waveguiding modes are being extracted. In our planar OLED, the peak wavelength blue shifted and the FWHM decreased on increasing the viewing angles, due to the microcavity effect.

Design of polarization-insensitive multi-electrode GRIN lens with a blue-phase liquid crystal

We report the design and simulation results of an adaptive GRIN lens based on multi-electrode addressed blue phase liquid crystal. A high dielectric constant layer helps to smoothen out the horizontal electric field and reduce the operating voltage. Such a GRIN lens is insensitive to polarization while keeping parabolic phase profile as the focal length changes.

Enhancing Optical Out-Coupling of Organic Light-Emitting Devices with Nanostructured Composite Electrodes Consisting of Indium Tin Oxide Nanomesh and Conducting Polymer.

A nanostructured composite electrode consisting of a high-index indium-tin-oxide nanomesh and low-index high-conductivity conducting polymer effectively enhances coupling of internal radiation of organic light-emitting devices into their substrates. When combining this internal extraction structure and the external extraction scheme, a very high external quantum efficiency of nearly 62% is achieved with a green phosphorescent device.

Efficiency improvement and image quality of organic light-emitting display by attaching cylindrical microlens arrays

In this paper, cylindrical microlens arrays with two different alignments were proposed to be applied in a commercial mobile phone having an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel. It was found that the parallel-aligned cylindrical array had better performance than the vertical-aligned one for the OLED panel. The parallel-aligned cylindrical microlens array can increase the luminous current efficiency at surface normal and the luminous power efficiency of the OLED panel by 45% and 38%, respectively. Besides, it can also make the spectrum of the OLED panel more insensitive to the viewing angle. Though it can slightly blur the image on the OLED panel, the universal image quality index can be maintained at a level of 0.8630.

Designs of broadband and wide-view patterned polarizers for stereoscopic 3D displays

This work presents a new methodology to design patterned circular polarizers consisting of in-cell polarizers, in-cell retarders and biaxial films to achieve very wide viewing freedom for stereoscopic 3D color LCDs. The biaxial films with least materials and simple fabrication concepts are employed for off-axis compensation of the in-cell retarders. In the best result, the crosstalk ratio is less than 0.035 or 0.0082 respectively for over ± 60° or ± 40° viewing cone of the 3D display. As to the normal view of the proposed structure with glasses or LCD rotation, the crosstalk ratio is less than 0.11%, with 93.5% improvement as compared with the ± λ/4 patterned polarizer. The dispersion properties of materials have been considered in all simulations to mimic real situations.

Anomalous optical absorption in metallic gratings with subwavelength slits

The absorption in metallic gratings with subwavelength slits is theoretically investigated. Anomalous optical absorption occurs over a wide range of incident angles for both polarizations. In particular, a nearly perfect absorbance up to 99.5% with a significant bandwidth is attained for TM polarization with compound slits. Enhanced absorption is associated with extreme concentration of fields inside the structure. The respective field pattern depicts a special feature of surface plasmons excited on single interface only, which are identified as semibonding modes. The anomalous absorption is also achieved for TE polarization, when the compound grating is reduced to a simple grating. For this polarization, the nomalous absorption is attributed to the occurrence of trapped modes, with a slightly smaller absorbance (98.4%).